The Wind Industry Gets To Draw Another Breath

(New York Times)

In the last-minute tax maneuvering in Congress this week, wind power came out well.

Wind not only got an extension of its tax credit in the federal budget compromise, but the rules were also restructured: while the extension runs for only one year, the nature of the deadline has changed. Projects do not need to be finished and feeding electricity to the grid by next New Year’s Eve; construction only needs to be started.

That change could prove critical. The renewal comes so late — developers had lobbied all last year to avert a Dec. 31 expiration — that most wind developers had simply stopped work on projects that could not be finished by the end of 2012.